A homeowner threw my dear ball back to me. What about now?

Golf rules are complicated! Thankfully, we have guru. our Guy rules know the front book to get back. Do you have a question? He has all the answers.

During a game tournament, I boarded a ball in the shrub of a raw houseless yard without stock or markers in the eye. As we boarded, we found a woman taking my ball from the bush. She asked whose ball she was and threw me. Given that the ball was clearly in the bush before it was taken, I decided to get side relief for an unbearable. Another player in the group said he had an additional penalty with two blows to play from the wrong place: his opinion was that I had to have the woman replacing the ball where he had been before receiving relief. After a quiet discussion, he collapsed. Did we get it properly? —Al Zolin, Brookshire, Texas

Sounds like this, though Guy Guy would have paid good money to see you ask the beautiful lady to pray to put the ball back in the bush where she found it – that would have been a strong blow!

Rule 9.6 requires you to replace your ball when it is moved from an external influence, but the 14.2c rule allows the player to receive relief without first replacing the ball, in this case as long as the right point of reference (original ball place) was known and used.

For more facilitation guidelines from our guru, read in…

I hit my goal in a 3 well over the green over the tee box in the next hole. As I prepared to hit my goal of recovery, I noticed that the ball washer interfered with my intended swing. I informed my partner playing that I was getting free relief. He said the ball washer was a permanent structure and I had to play my ball while standing. Instead, I got the right relief, not closer to the hole, hit an amazing chip and made it for it. He said I have to throw a noise to get an unbearable lie. Who was correct? —Matt Davis, Woodbury, Minn.

Matt, the answer depends on whether there is any liquid in the ball’s washer. Bad! The answer depends on whether the ball washer was movable or not.

Based on your description, it sounds like it was permanently installed, in this case it was allowed to get free relief after interference in your target oscillation area, for the rule 16.1a (1). Thus, provided that the relief taken was correct (ie, the nearest point of complete relief, a club length, not the closer to the hole), then there is no penalty.

It is worth noting that the other result would have played from a wrong place, which wins you the overall punishment of 2 strokes, not 1 blow to unbearable, as you did not intend to continue under unbearable rule. This is also the result if the washer were actually movable, as the free relief allowed for movable obstacles is to relocate the object from the road.